Can we please stop saying the vaccine does not reduce transmission?

[Frequentflier]

It does. Plenty of evidence now out which everyone can find for themselves. edition.cnn.com/2021/03/29/health/pfizer-and-moderna-covid-19-vaccines-work-wellness/index.html

It is up to you to not take the vaccine if you don't want to. But please stop dressing it up as an unselfish choice if you have no conditions that stop you from taking it.

Dealing with the two vaccines, firstly the astra zenica vaccine which was based on trials that have no long term data as insufficient time has elapsed. It's irrelevant how much money is thrown at something as there is a reason why it takes over a decade to study long term effects.. you cant buy time.

The Oxford vaccine was pushed through so quickly they didn't even know what dosage they were giving the people on the trial- from an article last year.. a fairly basis thing to get wrong on human testing but they managed it

"About 1,500 of the initial volunteers in a late-stage clinical trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were given the wrong dose, but weren't informed that a mistake had been made after the blunder was discovered, documents obtained by Reuters show.

The dosing mishap was presented to the trial participants in a letter dated June 8 as an opportunity for University of Oxford researchers to learn how well the vaccine works at different doses. The letter was signed by the trial's chief investigator, Oxford professor Andrew J. Pollard, and sent to the trial subjects.

As Reuters reported on December 24, participants were given about a half dose due to a measuring mistake by Oxford researchers. The Pollard letter didn't acknowledge any error. Nor did it disclose that researchers had reported the issue to British medical regulators, who then told Oxford to add another test group to receive the full dose, in line with the trial's original plan."

so we are expected to trust the science when they didnt even know or get right what the dosage was?
www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/volunteers-in-astrazeneca-trial-given-wrong-dose-documents-reveal/ar-BB1diOxR

Regarding the pfizer vaccine , it's completely new technology which has never been tested in mass vaccinations before so somewhat a lottery

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pfizer-vaccine-relies-on-new-technology-never-before-used-in-mass-human-vaccination/ar-BB1aQxlf

The vaccines are not experimental in the sense that they are untried. They are undergoing continued experiments the way that everything does in science - food stuffs, medicines, etc are continually examined to see what effects it has on other things - that IS what science does. It's all experiments - your life is one big experiment. The scientific method means experiments. None of that is the same as 'experimental'.

And people can keep saying they don't want to have it but don't have any scientific reason why they think it will harm them are only going to prolong things. Science doesn't stop being true just because you don't understand or believe it. Sure, some people won't ever be convinced, but you have to put up with that in society. Others are more willing to learn, so of course people in science are going to keep explaining to them, as some of them will decide that it is worth having it to get out of this mess. The sooner enough people do that, the sooner this will end.

People's understanding of science, and of risk, is so skewed these days, which is partly the fault of the education system. There are people who believe that their risk from the vaccine is greater than their risk from covid. It's not based on fact, but on feeling. Moreover, most of them also can't articulate what sort of evidence they want to see in order to convince them, because their understanding of science isn't at the level where further research would be any more reassuring than the current research is.

And yes, continually explaining to people is important. It can't make things worse. Yes, there will always be people who won't change their minds, or who will have decided to start with that they're not going to, and they can be left out of the equation, but there are a great many people who do need reassurance and explanations and could end up understanding why it's so important. A good recovery from a pandemic doesn't depends on every single person being vaccinated, but ultimately, those who want to get out of this faster, will realise that it takes the majority.

"And people can keep saying they don't want to have it but don't have any scientific reason why they think it will harm them are only going to prolong things"

Have you not read some of the quite frankly horrific side effects reported on here or just ignoring them? As I said to the other poster, please send your medical qualifications and thesis on the vaccine risks to the Canadian/German Drs explaining why they are wrong.. you don't take a vaccine to open up the economy- it's a heath related issue and should always be health related.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I find it interesting how not taking a vaccine is considered a 'selfish' choice, when shutting down the entire economy, forcing people out of work, denying children education, creating a budget deficit that will haunt our children for their entire lives, destroying careers and livelihoods in a way that massively impacts younger people, ie the people in the least amount of danger from covid, is considered - what - unselfish?

It is unbelievable to me that people are expected to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice to extent of taking a medication that they personally don't need and may have unknown side effects that have long term health consequences, and people are genuinely calling them selfish for not wanting to do that.

What the fuck is wrong with people???

Exactly.

I'm just relieved that most people are having the vaccine. There just seems to be a hardcore of deniers on Mumsnet. I have no idea why this should be so.

The debate has shifted. Traditionally (before Covid) vaccines where given against say measles when the risk of contracting measles was minuscule because the virus wasn't circulating. And the vaccine gave life long immunity as well as contributing to herd immunity. Vaccine more or less guaranteed immunity.

So antivaxers were rare and concerned solely with adverse events which are rare but do happen. Vaccine damage does occur. Drug companies insure against this.

But that's not where we are now. Once you have accepted that there is no treatment you have to accept lockdown and mass immunisation of the vulnerable to prevent overwhelm of the health service. Logic is that it's too late for those already severely ill and hospitalised but once we get jabs in arms the next wave will fare better. Flawed but let's go with it. Elderly and immunocompromised have low innate immunity and vaccination boosts immunity and protects from severe disease. Nothing about herd immunity.

What about the younger and non immune compromised? Do they benefit. Clearly not - so we bounce back to herd immunity.

But that is a whole different question. If vaccination doesn't give immunity but just prevents severe illness why the need to vaccinate those not at risk given that vaccination does not give immunity and therefore cannot promote herd immunity?

Who should we be more fearful of - the partially vaccinated with poor innate immunity (who can still contract and transmit and may foster vaccine resistant strains) or the primarily young, healthy with robust innate immunity but unvaccinated?

I will have the vaccine to protect myself but under no circumstances will my kids have it because frankly it's of no benefit to them at all and I am not prepared to give them a relatively new jab on the basis that it will protect others. If you want protection you get the jab. If you can't have it - I am sorry - but I'm not giving it to my kids to protect random strangers

[quote winched]@Belladonna12 I used the Qcovid risk calculator, developed by the University of Oxford and used by the NHS.

If they are wrong then blame the University of Oxford and question why the NHS are using it.

www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/how-to-find-out-your-risk-when-it-comes-to-coronavirus

In their example they use 10,000 with the same risk factors (I added asthma and coronary heart disease) 1 is likely to catch and die from covid and 6 are likely to be hospitalised. [/quote]
That calculator is taking into account the risk of catching Covid though which isn't particularly high at the moment. It's not saying that if 10,000 people already have Covid only one is likely to die and six be hospitalised. One in 500 people have died from Covid so far in the UK and much more have been hospitalised. That's with an infection rate of about 15% so far. If 75% of people have been infected then one in 100 would have died and may be one in 25 hospitalised.

It does protect them indirectly though - their families could be irreversibly changed if their parents or grandparents die, their society will be very different if they have to home school or have lockdowns repeatedly, their future prosperity will be very different if the economic recovery doesn't happen, their future health may be impacted if they get long covid, or if the virus mutates to a strain that primarily kills young people. Preventing Covid in society will have benefits to them whether they are at specific risk of the current virus or not themselves. It's not just random strangers that they are protecting.

But that is a whole different question. If vaccination doesn't give immunity but just prevents severe illness why the need to vaccinate those not at risk given that vaccination does not give immunity and therefore cannot promote herd immunity?

It does give immunity to most people though.

@CappuccinoCounter their direct family who are higher risk have had the vaccine and everyone else is low risk so in our case it is random strangers

Not if general society doesn't open up, or if the vaccine doesn't work on those specific people, no.

I just think it’s really sad that people will refuse the vaccine through fear and without one shadow of a doubt some of those people will die. Or they will infect someone else who will.

Let’s be honest people refuse it because they are scared predominately. And their fear will prevent them protecting themselves. Covid isn’t going anywhere quickly, it’s still out there. And society is opening up. So cases will rise. Due to the vaccination program hospitalisations and deaths will hopefully remain low, and the nhs able to cope. But there will still be cases, illness, deaths. And it’s odds on it will be the unvaccinated. Those same people who are arguing they should be allowed to integrate. Those are the people who will become the most at risk in society.

So ultimately what we have is fear preventing precaution, integration as society opens up, and a heightened risk to the unvaccinated, and with some of them dying due to it. It’s such a sad situation. But it is personal choice

Fear is causing more people to adopt dangerous totalitarian views than preventing people accepting a vaccine.

Society will open up. You can't protect everyone from everything. You protect the vulnerable and the rest of us make our choices and decide whether or not to take the minute risk - which is less than driving a car and we haven't closed the roads

@reformedcharacters

Fear is causing more people to adopt dangerous totalitarian views than preventing people accepting a vaccine.

Sure but it’s not a competition, nor does it negate the fact.

The issue is, for the unvaccinated, there is no difference in the,level of risk, it remains the same, Covid is out there, less peoole will know they have it, and will still pass it on, and people being unvaccinated through fear will sadly cause some unnecessary deaths. For them or their loved ones.

We will see it within the next few months. Thr deaths correlated against was the person vaccinated or not. Its tragic.

@Bluntness100 are you suggesting that the unvaccinated or those that have refused vaccine are at risk?

Those demanding the highest prices for ‘protection’ should be prepared to pay for it.

Myself and several other professionals I know are already looking to take the eye watering taxes we pay anywhere where freedom of choice will remain.

@Belladonna12 " one in 500 have died of covid in the Uk"

No they havent, 700,000 each year die in the Uk every year and each one of those where covid was suspected ( not even confirmed) was a covid death with an average age above life expectancy. If 700,000 die every year, a huge percentage of those may have flu, they may have a cold, it doesnt mean they have died from it yet anyone with covid even when just a "contributing factor" is registered as a covid death . Throw in deaths where someone died within 28 days of testing positive of covid who died of something else but due to legislation got registered as a " covid death" and those figures aren't accurate

Here is the actual clause the ONS use

This number is different from the count of deaths published on the GOV.UK website because of different reporting methods and timing: Office for National Statistics (ONS) weekly deaths figures are based on deaths registered in the stated week, and we have counted all deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate as “deaths involving COVID-19”; the GOV.UK figures are based on deaths occurring to date, among hospital patients who have tested positive for COVID-19, and include deaths that have not yet been registered.

‘Because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, our regular weekly deaths release now provides a separate breakdown of the numbers of deaths involving COVID-19. That is, where COVID-19 or suspected COVID-19 was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, including in combination with other health conditions. If a death mentions COVID-19, it will not always be the main cause of death, it will sometimes be a contributary

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020
.

@reformedcharacters

Fear is causing more people to adopt dangerous totalitarian views than preventing people accepting a vaccine.

well said, the real people showing fear are the ones as you say accepting this current shift to totalitarianism

And people can keep saying they don't want to have it but don't have any scientific reason why they think it will harm them are only going to prolong things.

I'm not sure when this turned into needing scientific reasons of harm though? Certainly there are some people who think it's experimental or don't trust the widely reported science. There are also some people who think it's a conspiracy/ microchip or are just generally anti-vax.

For me it's a mix of lots of little factors:

My risk according to University of Oxford calc used by the NHS is 0.0004%

I've already had covid and it was fine. Why would I put myself through even flu like symptoms for no reason? Whether that's a day or a week, it's an inconvenience and I don't get sick pay. I know two people my age range who have been floored for over a week with it and both said they wished they hadn't done it.

The countless posters on here with messed up periods who seemed to have been gaslighted. Told it can't be related. To clarify - that part is what worries me, not necessarily the messed up periods if it was a widely known side effect, but it apparently isn't.

Again this one is social media based but so what... report of somebody on the same medication as me (Lisdexamphetamine) with heightened pulse / BP and palpitations / tight chest admitted to A&E and almost went into cardiac arrest. You could say "well, there's a risk you'd be in ICU from covid" but I've had it, and I wasn't. Why can't I see how many people on the trial were on these types of medications?

Same with having a history of DVT. Again people will say covid increases risk of DVT - I've already had it.

The fact most people in my immediate family said they weren't getting it before we'd even really spoke about it. These are well educated, sensible people U50, and it helped tip the scales in favour of not getting it. If they said jump I wouldn't say how high, but it was certainly the thing that made me stop and actually think about it.

Doubts over AstraZeneca... their shockingly false statement that "the rate of blood clots is higher in the general population". This is being repeated again and again and it makes me suspect that it's not wholly trustworthy. Why are other countries stopping for U55 and UK isn't? It feels a bit like "0 covid deaths at any cost" mentality, which adds to the distrust because I completely disagree with everything about that logic.

There is probably more but I think I exhausted my point... and actually, it really doesn't matter what personal reasons people have. It doesn't matter if they are scientific or not. And I don't know of anyone who is actually at risk of covid who isn't getting a vaccine, so I don't understand how lowest risk people not having it will prolong this. Our hospital numbers will decrease, life will return to normal or at least the new normal. That was the "way out" and had been for ages until yet another shift of the goalposts.

And if it doesn't return to the new normal because there's a new super spready super killy vaccine resistant mutation then we're probably royally fucked anyway and it won't matter who didn't get the vaccine.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I find it interesting how not taking a vaccine is considered a 'selfish' choice, when shutting down the entire economy, forcing people out of work, denying children education, creating a budget deficit that will haunt our children for their entire lives, destroying careers and livelihoods in a way that massively impacts younger people, ie the people in the least amount of danger from covid, is considered - what - unselfish?

It is unbelievable to me that people are expected to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice to extent of taking a medication that they personally don't need and may have unknown side effects that have long term health consequences, and people are genuinely calling them selfish for not wanting to do that.

What the fuck is wrong with people???

YES!!!!!

That calculator is taking into account the risk of catching Covid though which isn't particularly high at the moment.

It's not based on at the moment data, though. It was based on data during the peak of the first wave. If anything, the risk of catching covid will be lower with half the population vaccinated, so I'm still failing to see your point. The risk of catching and dying from covid is what I posted (for that one fictional example person). Even in this post-vaccinated world where the unvaccinated are lepers, someone still has to catch covid to die from it, so the example risk factor is still correct. Are you suggesting that in the post-vaccinated UK, the risk of catching and dying from covid will actually increase above the levels seen at the peak of the first wave?

Because if you are then there really is no help for us.

AZ statement that the risk of blood clots is higher in unvaccinated people than vaccinated is true.

For common kinds of blood clots like DVT and PE that is the truth. The vaccine reduces the risk.

The reason Germany and Canada paused the AZ vaccine is due to a very rare condition where there are blood clots AND low platelets ( it's being called VIPIT by some people or HIT by others). This is in no way the same as more common blood clots.
The condition occurred in between 1/100000 and 1 in a million people who had AZ vaccine but it can also occur in unvaccinated people and there is a debate over whether it is related to the vaccine or not.

AZ are not lying at all when they say
the vaccine reduces risk of blood clots. It does. It might (or might not) also increase the risk of this other very rare condition.

Have the vaccine or don't have it but the risk to you from COVID (albeit small) is larger than the risk to you from any vaccine side effects (that risk is very, very small)

I am posting to clarify the science on that point only. I'd be here all night if I tried to address the illogicalities of much of the rest of the arguments.

CovoidOfAllHumanity

Genuine question, what’s the advice of there’s a strong history of brain blood clots in a family (from more than one blood line)?